1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a resin component using a biodegradable plastic, a resin component of an electrophotographic image forming apparatus (hereinafter referred to as an image forming apparatus) such as a copying machine, a printer, a recording image display apparatus, and a facsimile, which are configured to form a visible image by an electrophotographic process, an electrostatic recording process, or the like, and its decomposition.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, colorization has advanced in electrophotographic multifunction peripherals and printers. Further, the performance thereof has also been evolved year by year. The product cycle thereof has increasingly become short. Accordingly, the number of used and collected instruments has also increased. In used multifunction peripherals and printers, components are often broken back down into materials, which are molded again to be utilized for recycling. Alternatively, components are cleaned to be recycled.
However, it is difficult to reuse all of the components. Thus, in some cases, many components are still unrecycled. For such unrecycled components, the use of biodegradable plastic has received attention as a material facilitating exceedingly reducing environmental pollution since biodegradable plastic can be used in a way similar to a conventional plastic product.
The main benefit of biodegradable plastic is that it “returns to nature.” For instance, biodegradable plastic after use can be decomposed into water and carbon dioxide by a degradative enzyme. Accordingly, when waste products are disposed of, biodegradable plastic can be buried in the ground. And even if biodegradable plastic is burned, the amount of generated heat can be reduced. Hence, the biodegradable plastic material can be used in a plastic portion of a device that is difficult to reuse and is disposed of. Therefore, even if plastic is disposed of, environmental pollution can be prevented.
Biodegradable plastic is a polymer of natural origin, which is synthesized from a raw material of a plant-derived resource such as corn. As mentioned above, biodegradable plastic can be decomposed into carbon dioxide and water by bacteria in the ground, a degradative enzyme, or the like. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 11-78062, 2001-219618, and 10-186961 discuss a configuration in which biodegradable plastic is used as a part of an image forming apparatus so as to prevent environmental pollution.
As biodegradable plastic is increasingly applied to image forming apparatuses, there are many circumstances that call for a biodegradable plastic component to be fastened to another metal component with a fastening member such as a screw. However, if a biodegradable plastic component is joined to a metal component, when these components are separated from each other, screw-removing work significantly requires time. Thus, a disassembling cost becomes exceedingly high. That is, when a component is located between screws, depending on an area to which a screw is attached, it is difficult to separate components. Further, since a large torque is provided on a screw, a large burden may be imposed on a worker during the disassembly and material separation/sorting process.
On the other hand, there is a method of immersing a unit joined with a metal component and a biodegradable plastic component in a degradative enzyme liquid to decompose the components. However, even if this method is employed, it is difficult for a degradative enzyme liquid to reach a junction surface between the biodegradable plastic component and the metal component. Thus, it takes a certain amount of time to decompose the biodegradable plastic completely. As a result, until the biodegradable plastic component is decomposed, the metal component cannot proceed to the next process such as recycling. Accordingly, it becomes necessary to separate the metal component from the biodegradable plastic component in a short time and easily during disassembling.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide a system and/or method present directed to facilitating separating a biodegradable plastic material from another component in a short time even if the biodegradable plastic component and another component are immersed in a degradative enzyme liquid in a state in which the biodegradable plastic component and another component are joined together.